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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26863774">De Re Coquinaria (On the Subject of Cooking)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggie_GoldenStar1530/pseuds/Maggie_GoldenStar1530'>Maggie_GoldenStar1530</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Form of Curry [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Food, Comfort Food, Cooking, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, M/M, Mandalorian Culture, Mandalorian Food, family is more than blood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:21:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,420</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26863774</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggie_GoldenStar1530/pseuds/Maggie_GoldenStar1530</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone on Canto Bight following the events of Form of Curry and the attack on the Covert, Mandalorian chef Kreez Vac remembers his people from Nevarro the best way he knows how: By the food they liked the best.  </p><p>In which the author shamelessly indulges her food history nerd and her interest in social and cultural history.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Form of Curry [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Favreau dropped a new batch of episodes of his cooking show in Netflix, which means it's time for Kreez to come back. </p><p>The title, De Re Coquinaria, is from a 5th century Roman cookbook. It's separated into ten sections, which became the basis for the structure of this set of character studies. There will be ten parts in total, this chapter has sections 1-3. </p><p>Special thanks to MissTeaVee for allowing me to use her OCs Edii Kryxx and Edii's children Arivi and Kaedo in section 3. Also for the recipe for the curried soup, it sounds AMAZING. </p><p>For the names of the spices, I followed the same scheme I started in Form of Curry: they're based on the Hindi words. I did not try to come up with words for other various ingredients, but it felt important that there be Mando'a words for something that is so important to the culture as spice.</p><p> </p><p>Mirch: pepper<br/>Tej leave: bay leaves<br/>Kes’ar: saffron<br/>Mace: gada<br/>Turmeric: hu’ldi<br/>Coriander: dhunni’a<br/>Ginger: sont<br/>Cayenne: sook’ mir’rch<br/>Cloves: laug<br/>Cardamom: ilaayachii<br/>Cinnamon: Dal’chi’nee<br/>Cumin: jeera</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kreez Vac let out a deep breath as he shut down the kitchen in the small food stall on Canto Bight for the night.</p><p>It was a good job. He got to cook more or less whatever he wanted, as long as the spice level could be adjusted. He had a small set of rooms to himself, which meant that he could relax without his helmet and not have to worry about being disturbed.</p><p>He had something to do, he had a place to stay, he had credits. That was more than a lot of people had.</p><p>And every night, before he went to sleep, he would light a candle- he had very little he needed to spend credits on, even on Canto Bight, so he would spend a little extra to get a good candle, one that didn’t smoke and had a hint of a spicy smell. He would like a candle and say the remembrance of the dead.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.” <em>I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.</em></p><p>You were supposed to recite the names of the people you remembered. You were supposed to recite their names and remember things about them. But the shameful truth was, he had been a recent addition to the Tribe on Nevarro, comparatively. They were protective of their given names, and he’d only learned a few in the years he was there. He knew use-names, he knew titles, and he knew the foods each person liked the best.</p><p>He didn’t know if his Tribe was all dead or not, but he hadn’t heard anything from anyone since the message that the Covert was under attack. His ship had been scrapped not long after, and he wasn’t able to salvage the comm unit. There was no way to know who might have survived, or where they were, or how to get in touch with them. The protocol had been to wait until someone contacted him, but no call ever came.</p><p>Most of the people on Nevarro had been from Concordia. Kreev was not. He’d been born on Mandalore, trained in cooking on Mandalore. While he had a basic knowledge of weaponry -it had been expected- he wasn’t really a warrior. His job in the machinery of the Mandalorian fighting corps was to keep everyone fed.</p><p>The challenge was the fun part. Any idiot could make a vat of slop that was somewhat edible and had all the nutritional components to keep people going. Somewhat fewer idiots could make a good meal for 10 or 15 people that was delicious, well-balanced, and looked good on the plate.</p><p>To be able to cook good food, in all dimensions of good, was both an art and a service. And Kreez was good at both. Sometimes it was hard to get a well-plated meal out to 500 people, but he worked hard to make sure the color palate was attractive, at least. “A colorful plate is a healthy plate” his cook-master would tell him.</p><p>So when the Empire came, and the Purge, Kreez wasn’t in the first wave of deaths. The attacks on Mandalore, Concordia, and Concord Dawn had been coordinated, but those on Mandalore who weren’t considered to be soldiers weren’t the first to be targeted.</p><p>That had been kind of an insult. The Empire might not have considered the support staff to be soldiers, but they <em>were</em> soldiers. They could fight. They might not have been the lethal killing machines that their vode had been (had been), but they could hold their own against some stormtroopers.</p><p>And so the Resistance began. A cook, one who only wore token armor and no helmet, could go many places. A cook understood the proportions needed for anything from a stew to a pastry to a bomb. A cook wouldn’t be looked at twice, not at first.</p><p>They knew they wouldn’t win. The Empire was too big. There were too many. The only goal the Mandalorian Resistance had was to make it hurt for as long as they could. The Empire was going to kill them all anyway.</p><p>They held out for two months. Two exhausting, terrifying, exhilarating months. After the first few weeks, Kreez had to go into hiding, because he’d been seen at a few too many bomb sites.</p><p>“Could have taken a few pointers from those Death Watch terrorists during Duchess Satine’s tenure,” his partner Sanbras said as they ran from yet another successful bombing. Kreez had laughed. Cooking was his art, but he had to admit, this was also good.</p><p>Kreez hadn’t wanted to leave. Getting off of Mandalore was difficult at best, because the biodomes kept everyone so contained. But sometimes, sometimes, one might be able to be smuggled out. When their cell was compromised, they found a ship that had space for one. One person.</p><p>“They’re closing in on us, cyare. They’re closing in on us, and you have skills that will be useful somewhere else.” Sanbras said.</p><p>“I don’t want to leave you!”</p><p>“You must. One of us needs to survive.” Sanbras grabbed Kreez’s head and pressed their foreheads together. “I’ll find you if I can. But you have to go.”</p><p>Kreez put a hand on Sanbras’ chin. “I don’t… I wish we had more time.”</p><p>“We had more than a lot of people. Go.”</p><p>So Kreez went. He’d been given a way to contact a Covert, but that one had either been overrun or abandoned when he got there. He found another, and was able to join with them, until internal strife caused people to go their separate ways.</p><p>Kreez and another warrior were eventually found by Ordo, and brought to Nevarro. The Nevarro Tribe had been thrilled to get a decent cook. Sure, he had to improvise a lot, and there weren’t a lot of the right kinds of spices, but the other people were friendly. A little standoffish, a lot wary at first, but extremely generous with the little they had.</p><p>On Mandalore, he’d had a helmet, of course, but rarely wore it. After he escaped, he wore it more and more, but sometimes he would slip out, and be just another person. Once he and Sijmo joined the Nevarro tribe, then he was wearing the helmet all the time. That was the price for this community and he willingly paid it.</p><p>He found it exhausting and isolating. There was no one he could show his face to. Even if there had been someone he was interested in entering into riduurok with, he couldn’t shake the memory of Sanbras. He had no idea if his beloved was alive or dead, but he felt, in his soul, that he’d know if Sanbras went marching far away. Wouldn’t he?</p><p>So he threw himself into his work. Figuring out how to feed 50 odd people for as little as possible, and still make it good food was a challenge. In the beginning, it was hard. The kitchens on Mandalore hadn’t been high end, but they were at least well-stocked. Here, they did their best. Sometimes the food wasn’t great, by his standards, but to a one, everyone said it was better than what they’d been eating before.</p><p>That thought made him profoundly sad, as he looked at a pot of perfectly mediocre stew that had almost been licked clean.</p><p>So he learned. He adapted. The bazaar wasn’t bad for getting food, though prices could sometimes be a bit <em>interesting</em>. Fortunately, he had a lot of recipes that did well with lesser cuts of meat, and he was able to improvise a lot. Fresh produce was always a challenge on Nevarro, but far away from the town, the volcanic soil was good for growing caff.</p><p>Just like an armorer needed to know her people in order to give them the armor best suited to their needs, a cook needed to know their people in order to know what foods they needed, both physically and spiritually. “Food doesn’t only feed the body, ad’ika. It feeds the soul.”</p><p>Back in his tiny set of rooms on Canto, Kreez pulled out a small journal that he kept hidden in the wall. He didn’t know everyone’s name, but he did remember the food everyone liked the best.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>1: Mise en place</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The al’verde was a large man, an imposing man, a man who seemed certain of his place in the galaxy. He walked through the covert with confidence. He knew every person in the Tribe, what their preferred weapons were, and how they were doing. The Foundlings were in awe of him, except for his own three who adored him.</p><p>But sometimes, sometimes the al’verde would come into the kitchen late at night, unable to sleep, and rummage around for the spiced wine. He would sit, in the corner, and slowly, carefully sip a single cup. About halfway through the cup, he would start to talk, remembering the food of his youth.</p><p>“Right after the exile to Concordia we didn’t have much, but we hunted, you know? We could hunt, and we could get stuff in, occasionally. Spices were the hardest.”</p><p><em>They still are,</em> Kreez thought, but nodded.</p><p>“We managed, but I remember those first few years as really lean, until we got things really going. But we never had wine like this. This is great. What’s in it?”</p><p>“Well, wine…” Kreez smiled to himself as the al’verde made a noise of annoyed disgust. “Doesn’t matter too much if it’s good wine, but it helps if it’s at least strong. Simmer half of it with uj syrup, then add mirch, tej leaves, kes’ar, ground up dates, cook it a while longer, then add more wine and strain it. You’re supposed to use charcoal for the straining, but here, I strain it through pumice. It works just as well.”</p><p>“It’s good.”</p><p>Finding kes’ar was the hardest. The little yellow strands that tasted like sunshine were expensive and it was hard to find the good stuff. Kreez only used a quarter as much as was called for, and still used a blend of the good stuff and the cheap kes’ar that barely had the flavor. It would be so much better if he could use the right amount, but for the moment, this would have to be good enough.</p><p>“Did you get this recipe from Mandalore?”</p><p>“Yeah, we made it for the officers when Governor Saxon would visit the base.” Kreez paused, as he knew he’d have to, for the al’verde to make a disgusted sound at the name of the Imperial-installed governor. “Not something the rank and file would get.”</p><p>“We’re lucky to have it.” The al’verde sipped the last of the wine, politely washed his cup and straw, and left, back to his responsibilities.</p><p>Most common people on Mandalore still ate much like their ancestors did: hearty, spicy food that could be easily scaled up for an army or down for a family. As long as there were enough spices, anything could be flavorful. But the elite, especially once Duchess Satine and the New Mandalorians took power, prefer more “refined” food. Less spicy, more focused on the ingredients. “Food should taste like it’s self” or some such bullshit.</p><p>Kreez hated it, if he was being honest. But this particular wine was good.</p><p>Kreez wrote down the recipe -both the true recipe and the one he’d adjusted on Nevarro- under the title al’verde. Vizsla, he thought the man’s name was. But he didn’t want to ask. If he wasn’t certain, then he didn’t have to examine the feelings the name Vizsla gave him.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, al’verde.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>2: Meat Dishes</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Foundlings brought into the Covert always came with mixed emotions. Joy, of course, at a new child finding a home. Anger, at whatever tragedy required the child to need a refuge in the first place. Usually fear on the part of the child, because it was all new and strange and a lot would have had to have changed in a short time for them to have become Foundlings.</p><p>And they were usually all hungry.</p><p>Sometimes it took a little time before a new Foundling would eat. Sometimes they would inhale so much food they’d be sick. It wasn’t uncommon to find a new Foundling hoarding food, just in case.</p><p>Not long after Kreez and Sijimo joined the Covert, a pair of Foundlings were brought in, siblings. They had been well-dressed, once. By the time Ordo had found them, their clothes were in rags and they were shoeless and freezing. The warmest place in the Covert was the kitchen, so they were plunked down near the stoves, and given a hot drink.</p><p>They both sat quietly, five and four years old, near as anyone could tell. They didn’t say anything, or react to anyone. Ordo said he’d found them wandering the edge of the bazaar, completely alone. A few people above had admitted to having seen them around for a “while” (whatever that meant), but no one had tried to help them. The kids wouldn’t (or couldn’t) say where they’d come from. They just sat, clutching the mugs of hot tea.</p><p>The al’baar’ur came in and said to give them time to warm up, then a bath. “They tend to bounce back once they know they’re safe. Still will have a lot of things to work through, of course, but the basic thing is to make sure they know that they’re warm and safe here.”</p><p>They sat for hours. Ordo sat quietly near them for a while, working on something, Kreez would replace their mugs of tea as they got cold. Eventually, he started on dinner.</p><p>There were a few things that were common in all variations of Mandalorian food that he’d learned about. Everyone had some kind of dough wrapped parcel full of flavorful things. The things and spice combinations would change, the composition of the dough would change, but the basic concept was universal.</p><p>Kreez had managed to keep with him through his travels a very old cookbook from just after the Jedi-Mandalorian wars that had a version of these dumplings. When he could get the aubergines, then he would make them. They were good, and filling, and the smell was amazing.</p><p>Roasting the aubergines with a bit of oil and salt and pepper was just the start, and the smell would waft through the tunnels and let everyone know that a treat was in store. When Kreez pulled them out of the oven to cool, the little girl looked up to see what he was doing.</p><p>He noticed, of course, but pretended he didn’t. He knew enough to not scare her.</p><p>The meat needed to be minced. Traditionally it should be done with knives and cut up fine, but he had a Covert full of people to feed and no time for that bullshit. He used a meat grinder. “No points for authenticity,” he muttered.</p><p>The girl continued to watch as he ground the meat, a mix of odds and ends of bantha and nerf. Without looking, Kreez said, “A mince is a good way to use up things that are too small or weirdly shaped for roasting or a stew. You just grind it up and mix it together. Sometimes you need to add a bit of fat, or it just dries out.” Once the mince was all ground up, he mixed in salt and pepper and browned it. “We have to cook it down before it goes in the dumplings, to make sure it’s cooked through all the way.”</p><p>He set the mince aside in a large bowl. “Now we need to add the stuff that makes it taste good. I’m going to cut up some onions, and add some sont root, and some garlic. Honestly, if you start with those three things, you’ve got a good start on any dish.” She blinked at him.</p><p>He held up his precious jar of kes’ar threads. “I don’t often put these in the dumplings, but… today is special.” A pinch of the kes’ar threads were ground up in a bit of aromatic water and mixed in with the meat, the spices, and the aubergine pulp.</p><p>The girl’s little brother had fallen asleep, but the girl watched avidly as Kreez rolled out the dough. “Some people have feelings about the shape of their dumplings. I’m making these into pyramid shapes, see?” He held out one, stuffed and sealed, and the girl nodded.</p><p>“There’s another kind I make that are round and puffy, like pillows, but these work better with flat edges.” She stood up and crept forward a little to get a better view of what he was doing. He rapidly went through and made the rest of the dumplings. The last few, she hesitantly helped him seal.</p><p>“Now we fry them.” He had a big pot of oil ready to go on the stove, and carefully fried them in small batches while the girl watched, drinking a fresh mug of the tea.</p><p>Once the first batch was cool, he handed her one. She took over to her brother and woke him up so he could eat. Kreez’s mouth tightened as he watched the clearly well-practiced routine. The boy woke up, took the food, and examined it from all angles while she watched and once she gave him a nod, he took a small bite. Then another. Then it was gone.</p><p>Kreez nodded and handed them a plate with a few more. Too many and they’d get sick, but it wasn’t heavily spiced. There were dipping sauces if people needed more flavor, but for these two, a couple of dumplings each would do.</p><p>Once fed and warm, the children were taken for a bath and given clean clothes. The girl’s name was Ghijs, and the boy’s was Ardu. Ordo adopted them both and the last time Kreez had seen them, Ghijs had begged for him to try to find the aubergines, <em>please.</em> Those two had been survivors from the start. If anyone was likely to survive an attack on the Covert, it was them. He just hoped they weren’t alone.</p><p>The book he’d so carefully protected since the Purge was no doubt lost as well. It was perhaps silly to mourn a book when there were so many others, but there was so much in it he didn’t have memorized. He wrote down the recipe for the original dumplings as accurately as he could.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, Ghijs and Ardu. ni partayli, gar darasuum.” <em>I am still alive, Ghijs and Ardu. I remember you, so you are eternal. </em>He couldn’t quite bring himself to think that they might be gone. He sighed. “And my little book.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>3: Vegetables</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Edii Kryxx, for all that he knew her name, was a hard nut to crack.</p><p>Oh, she was polite enough. Always had a nod for him. Her children would say please and thank you and were great at helping with the dishes when it was their turn. But she never really talked with him. Even a conversation about what foods she liked was stilted. She got a little more open about the food preferences of her children.... But not much.</p><p>“Well, you’re new,” Ordo had shrugged. “It takes her a while, especially since you didn’t grow up with our… ways.”</p><p>Kreez had sighed to himself. No, he hadn’t grown up believing quite the same things, but the Armorer had made it clear that this is what he would have to agree to should he stay with this Tribe and in this Covert. He’d been so desperate for community that he would have agreed to almost anything.</p><p>It wasn’t that Kreez was desperate to be <em>liked</em> by everyone, but he did feel a responsibility to make sure he knew a favorite dish for everyone. And he was just not sure what Edii would <em>like</em>. Everything was taken with a nod of thanks, and the dishes for her and her two children were always brought back empty.</p><p>So Kreez did what any Mandalorian would do. He asked around. No group of people was better at gossip than Mandalorians, especially a small Tribe that rarely saw outsiders. A new member meant there was a new audience for all the old stories that everyone else had heard a hundred, a thousand times before.</p><p>Edii had grown up in a traditional Mandalorian family on Concordia. Extensive, well-connected, though a few people muttered darkly that they tended to treat their Foundlings differently than their Creedborns. Not, they would all quickly assure Kreez, that Edii would do that, of course not. She regarded the Tribe’s children equally, of course. But there was something about the family she’d come from…</p><p>“You know how the al’verde is a stickler for the Way? She’s as true a believer as he is.” Ordo had cautioned Kreez.</p><p>With that bit of information, Kreez felt like he had a starting point. He was getting more familiar with the spice combinations in Concordian food, which differed somewhat from the common food in Sundari (which was subtly different from the tastes in Keldabe, which differed from….) and the thick rich soups and sauces. He could, at least, try something with the multitude of squashes and sweet tubers.</p><p>One of the many advantages to cooking on Nevarro was the heat from the lava flows. Roasting a huge amount of squashes with garlic was easy. Then he cut up onions and cooked them down with pepper and ka’ree powder, and toasted up hu’ldi, sook’ mir’rch, dhunni’a, and jeera. Once the squashes and garlic were done, he put it all in a pot with some of their precious tree milk and simmered it until it thickened.</p><p>It was rich, and warm, and hearty. The tunnels smelled amazing, so much so that the Armorer had a mild concern that anyone on the surface could smell it. The al’verde almost went into convulsions over it.</p><p>He’d offered Edii a small taste she could slip under her helmet. She had taken the taste, while he waited anxiously. He’d checked with the other people from Concordia about what they could remember about the right flavor combinations. It had the hetikles, the noseburn, while also having the particular draluram, the “bright mouth” that was found in Concordian cuisine. He’d worked really hard to get the balances right.</p><p>Edii had merely nodded and thanked him by name, then taken her serving along with servings for her two children back to her quarters.</p><p>Kreez was crushed. He’d tried so hard. Ordo had clapped him on the back. “For her that was pretty effusive.”</p><p>Then she came back for seconds. “For the children.” Then thirds.</p><p>Her two children later came by to see if they were needed to help with clean-up. Arivi was a somewhat reserved 6 year old. Kaedo was 3 and determined to make up all the words that his sister held back. Kaedo was the one who charged headlong into the kitchen and tugged on Kreez’ apron.</p><p>“Our- our bu, she liked the soup!”</p><p>“Did she?” Kreez tilted his head at Arivi who was shyly holding back. She nodded.</p><p>“She did. She said it tasted almost like her ba’buir’s soup.”</p><p>Kreez smiled to himself. Even the toughest nuts can crack, under the right kind of pressure.</p><p>He wrote down the recipe- although he did note that this one was more of a method, even more than any of the other recipes. It could vary completely based on what was available, what spice blend was preferred, or even if meat was handy.</p><p>Protocol would dictate that children and their parents were to attempt to get to safety in the event of an attack. He prayed that Edii and the children were safe somewhere. But just in case…</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Edii, Arivi, and Kaedo.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Four more character sketches with recipes from Kreez's book of remembrance, based on books 4-7 of Apicius' De Re Coquinaria. Compound Dishes, Pulses, Fowl, and Luxury Dishes.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Favreau dropped a new batch of episodes of his cooking show in Netflix, which means it's time for Kreez to come back.</p><p>The title, De Re Coquinaria, is from a 5th century Roman cookbook. It's separated into ten sections, which became the basis for the structure of this set of character studies. There will be ten parts in total, this chapter has sections 4-7.</p><p>For the names of the spices, I followed the same scheme I started in Form of Curry: they're based on the Hindi words. I did not try to come up with words for other various ingredients, but it felt important that there be Mando'a words for something that is so important to the culture as spice.</p><p>Mirch: pepper<br/>Tej leave: bay leaves<br/>Kes’ar: saffron<br/>Mace: gada<br/>Turmeric: hu’ldi<br/>Coriander: dhunni’a<br/>Ginger: sont<br/>Cayenne: sook’ mir’rch<br/>Cloves: laug<br/>Cardamom: ilaayachii<br/>Cinnamon: Dal’chi’nee<br/>Cumin: jeera</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>4: Compound Dishes</em>
</p><p>Of the people in the Nevarro Covert, Kreez liked Ordo the most. It wasn’t just because Ordo had happened to find him and brought him in, though he did admit that was part of it.</p><p>He was quiet, but observant. He was thoughtful and was always willing to help Kreez navigate some of the more tricky aspects of life within the Covert. Many of the people in the Tribe were from Concordia originally, and many of them had known each other for most of their lives. Ordo tended to stay away from the interpersonal conflicts, but would act as mediator when needed.</p><p>But he noticed <em>everything</em>. And remembered <em>everything</em>. And sometimes, someone would stomp up to him and say, “I know that I’m annoyed at the al’verde and I can’t remember why.”</p><p>Ordo knew why. He always knew why. He had the institutional memory of grievances going back twenty years or more. For Kreez, this was handy. Figuring out the patterns and ebbs and flows of the personalities -and they were all strong personalities- would have been impossible without Ordo providing the context for everything and everyone.</p><p>And somehow, he managed to do this without being malicious about it. In a society of gossips, Ordo had a rare gift.</p><p>But it was when Ordo had come in, sounding stuffed up even through his helmet, that Kreez was really able to demonstrate his gratitude. Colds weren’t common, but they happened. Kreez knew exactly what to do for a cold. He’d learned from his buir and he’d even managed to convince the beroya to pick up the right grains for it. Just waiting for the time that they would be needed.</p><p>Once he’d heard Ordo sniffling and announced that he was going to his quarters, Kreez set the upvas grain soaking, and toasted a bit of jeera in butter. He cut up a tuber and a small chi’lee, and added it to the pan with the jeera, then poured in the soaked upvas and let it cook down.</p><p>The hardest part was to make sure it didn’t overcook, and the result was a thick, warm, mildly spicy porridge that could help clear out human sinuses. Kreez smiled to himself as he put together a tray with a covered pot of the porridge, a few bowls, and spoons, so Ordo’s Foundlings could eat, too. If he was sick, then odds were good they were also feeling sniffly.</p><p>Kreez hummed to himself walking down to Ordo’s room, pleased that he could do this for his friend. He gave a cheerful knock, which was answered by a muffled, “Hold on, please.”</p><p>Ordo opened the door, with his helmet on, but most of his armor off, including his gloves, showing off his…. dark orange skin.</p><p>Kreez blinked. And then blinked again. “....oh.”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“...I brought you some porridge for your cold… but…” Kreez shifted uncomfortably. “...um. You’re… uh… Zabrak?”</p><p>Ordo started to laugh. He laughed so hard he wheezed and collapsed against the wall. “You didn’t know?”</p><p>“....well. No.” Kreez looked down at the porridge. “It’s not meat… I… I’m sorry.”</p><p>This set Ordo off into another howl of laughter, ending only when he started coughing. “It’s okay. The kids will like it, I’m sure.”</p><p>Kreez huffed in annoyance. “You could have <em>mentioned</em>.”</p><p>“It wasn’t relevant, skraan’ur.”</p><p>“It was! I could have made sure you had more meat…” It was entirely possible that Ordo had been living -no, not living, <em>surviving-</em> on meat ration bars. Zabraks were carnivorous, everyone knew that.</p><p>Ordo called for the children to come and take the tray, then clapped Kreez on the shoulder. “Look, everyone is eating better with you here. Everyone is a bit happier. What was that you said once, you gotta feed the soul? Our souls are all a lot fuller, so. Vor entye.”</p><p>Kreez tilted his helmet in an unmistakable glower, and Ordo shrugged, unrepentant. “That was also the best laugh I’ve had in years.”</p><p>Kreez blew out his nose in annoyance as he wrote down the porridge recipe in his book. No, Ordo never ate it, as far as he knew. But that was the dish that he associated with Ordo the most, and it served the asshole right for not telling him what food he needed right away.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Ordo.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>5: Pulses</em>
</p><p>The Al’verde had three Foundlings- two of whom had sworn the Creed, and one younger one, almost ten. Faris, the youngest, ran with the rest of the Foundlings in a small, chaotic, mostly quiet swarm. They’d appear in the kitchen, demolish whatever food Kreez had out for just this purpose, and then vanish.</p><p>The older two, Vayez and Vha, were technically adults. Vayez had sworn the Creed two years before Kreez arrived in the Covert, and Vha had only just sworn. Kreez didn’t quite understand why it was that this Tribe interpreted the Creed in such a way that not even siblings could see each other’s faces after making their Oath.</p><p>Ordo had tried to explain it to him, but even his tone implied that he didn’t quite agree with it. “We believe that when you take your helmet, you become something greater than yourself. It.. it isn’t reasonable for parents and children to not know each other’s faces, it isn’t reasonable for spouses to remain helmeted…” he trailed off.</p><p>“Siblings, though?”</p><p>Ordo had shrugged. “This is the Way.” Kreez wondered if Ordo would encourage his own Foundlings to follow the strictest interpretation of the Way or not. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he had any Foundlings of his own.</p><p>Kreez had held his tongue. It’s not like he wasn’t warned that this was the Way here. He’d accepted it. But it didn’t seem fair, or right, or, he thought quietly and privately, terribly healthy. Not only did you lose your sibling’s identity, you also lost meal times with your family. Eating with family, and then with his cohort in the Fighting Corps had been such an important part of his life. The community aspect of simply sharing a meal was completely absent from this Tribe, and it made him sad.</p><p>But he wasn’t there to make any great social change. He was there to feed people.</p><p>Vayez and Vha were young enough that they were still growing, and growing bodies needed a lot of fuel. That, Kreez could provide without judgement. And if they wanted to sit in the kitchen and eat a snack together, he could provide something that would work for them.</p><p>They weren’t the type to make requests. Kreez suspected that was a result of growing up during wartime, and then spending so many of their formative years in hiding after the Purge. Any treat was appreciated. He’d seen the Foundlings take a packet of sweets or a bag of special fruit the beroya brought back and quickly distribute amongst themselves.</p><p>The adults could always tell who was on the outs with the children when someone had to wait a long time to get their share. They always got it, eventually, but the wait was always pointed.</p><p>But Kreez had a small soft sport for Vayez and Vha. Most of their agemates had disappeared in the Purge; no one was certain what had happened to the children sent away for safety. Vayez and Vha should have been with them, but they had other plans and had hid instead. Their position within the Tribe before they’d come of age was a strange mix of being over-protected and, at the same time, expected to take on as many adult responsibilities as they could manage.</p><p>So when Kreez first made the dumplings with the spicy sweet bean paste in the middle, he did notice how they both managed to sneak in for multiple helpings.</p><p>The good thing about the bean paste dumplings is that the beans themselves were extremely cheap and easy to get, even on Nevarro. Mostly they needed some sweetener, a bit of spice to warm them up, and time. Then it was just a matter of filling the dumplings and steaming them.</p><p>That was one of the other really good things about Nevarro- setting up a steamer took no time at all with the geothermal energy. The first time he made them, Kreez watched Vayez tearing his share into smaller pieces that he could fit underneath his helmet and eat them that way. The second time, he made them smaller. It took a little bit of playing around with the thickness of the dough to get the proportions right.</p><p>But in the end, he made a large batch and sent a plate out for the children. The adults straggled in to get some, one by one, loosely by age and rank. The Al’verde took his and the Armorer’s share, then everyone else followed. Vayez and Vha, as the youngest adults, were last.</p><p>Just as Kreez had known they would be. There was one left for each of them, until Kreez hissed and nodded to a plate hidden away in the corner, with a small mountain of the dumplings.</p><p>He watched Vayez and Vha exchange a glance as both of them started to quiver with anticipation. Officially, they might have been adults. But in reality….</p><p>He’d set up two seats where they could eat together, if they wanted, and almost without hesitation, they both sat down to eat the small dumplings. Kreez went and found something else to do, outside of the kitchen, to give the siblings the time to themselves.</p><p>He found himself wiping his eyes as he wrote down the recipe for the small dumplings. While it was protocol that children and their parents were to try to evacuate, it was the duty of the warriors to hold off pursuit as long as possible. He knew that it was very likely that both Vayez and Vha were gone, marching away.</p><p>At least they were together.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Vayez and Vha.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>6: Fowl</em>
</p><p>Sijmo Krett was a bit of an enigma to Kreez. He never talked about himself. Just quietly went about his business, did his work around the Covert. Occasionally made a comment or request about the food. Even when playing cu’bikad (which he was appallingly good at) he declined to join in the trash talk and just played, silently.</p><p>Kreez hadn’t been entirely sure the Sijimo even <em>liked</em> him until their old Covert had started to fall apart.</p><p>Mandalorians, as a rule, weren’t always great at letting things go. In fact, they were traditionally quite bad at it. Bringing up the arguments of generations past was a time-honored tradition in many families. Throw in a Covert where some people had been on one side of one Mandalorian Civil War or another and some people had been on another side, and some people hadn’t even been involved, add in extreme trauma and boredom, and things were primed to explode one way or another.</p><p>It wasn’t inevitable, necessarily. Many people felt that refighting the Civil Wars was a waste of time after the destruction of the Great Purge. Whichever side of whichever war didn’t matter. They were all Mandalorians facing down the gun of extinction together. Did the Civil Wars lead to the events that caused the Great Purge? Maybe. Maybe not. It depended on who you asked.</p><p>In the end, Kreez felt, it didn’t have to matter. Nite Owls, Death Watch, New Mandalorians (with their tasteless food… Kreez <em>did</em> judge that), civilians- the Empire went after them all without distinction. The past happened. Learn from it, try not to repeat it, and move on. Survive.</p><p>Not that Mandalorians were always great about learning from the past.</p><p>But somewhere along the line, someone decided to start refighting one of the wars. Which one? It didn’t matter. Someone decided to stir up trouble where… well, to say “where none had been before” wasn’t entirely accurate. But things had been okay.</p><p>And maybe, with strong leadership, the Covert could have settled. But instead lines were drawn, words were said, blows were thrown, and things began to fall apart.</p><p>Sijmo had taken a look around and said, “Nope.” Then he went to the kitchen. “Time to go.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“This place is going to fall apart and I don’t want any part of it. You don’t want any part of it. Time to fuck off.”</p><p>Kreez had frowned. This place had given him a home and helped improve his armor. He’d gotten more proficient with weapons than he’d ever been before. He liked most of the people there. He didn’t want to just <em>leave</em>. “I’m sure it will blow over.”</p><p>“Nah, I’ve seen this before. It won’t, and you don’t want any part of it. We need to fuck off.” Sijmo started methodically packing up Kreez’s knives. “I know what you’re thinking. Maybe you can help mediate or soothe things. Maybe you can make everything okay, but you can’t. There’s no magic spice mixture that’ll do what you think, except for one, and that’s not the kind of spice you work with.”</p><p>“But…”</p><p>“I’m leaving, you should come with me. You deserve better than this.” Kreez started to think about it, then one of the other Covert members had come demanding that he show support for the alor by refusing to make dinner for everyone. Kreez looked at Sijmo. “When you're right, you're right.”</p><p>So they left. Sijmo didn’t have a ship, but he was a decent mercenary and Kreez was usually able to make a few credits by cooking wherever they ended up. After a few months of this, they found themselves camping in the shelter of a bluff on some world where it was a bit rainy and chilly. Sijmo had dug a pit and lined it with rocks. Kreez lit a fire in it to warm up the rocks, and pulled out some birds from a cooler bag that had been marinating in yogurt and spices for most of the day.</p><p>“Why me?” Kreez asked.</p><p>“Eh?”</p><p>“Why’d you drag me out with you?”</p><p>Sijmo grunted. “You weren’t involved with the shit that was going down. I’ve seen it before. People want to keep stirring up shit and stirring up shit and they don’t give a fuck who they tear down to make it happen.”</p><p>“Oh. Well. Thank you.”</p><p>“You deserve better than that, but you weren’t gonna go without encouragement. We’ll find some place. In the meantime, cook those birds.”</p><p>Kreez tied the legs of the birds around a spit and hung them down to roast over the coals. The smell was amazing, especially given the cold and the damp. They’d been eating ration bars for a few days, and the thought of real food made both of them content.</p><p>It was the smell of the roasting birds that led Ordo to find them. He’d heard there were two Mandalorians around, and was able to bring them back to Nevarro (after eating the bird that had been intended as leftovers for the next day) and explaining the Way that would need to be followed.</p><p>Sijmo had shrugged and said they should give it a shot. “If it turns out to be a shitshow, we can fuck off again, but,“ his voice grew a little wistful. “It would be nice to have people.”</p><p>In the tunnels of Nevarro, Sijmo again retreated into himself, but would always take time to help the children with fighting form or give them tips on how to win cu’bikad. He even helped Kreez make one of the pit ovens. He slipped almost seamlessly into the flow of life on Nevarro.</p><p>“So, not a shitshow.” Kreez asked, several months later.</p><p>“Nah, not a shitshow. They’re alright.” From Sijmo, that was high praise</p><p>Kreez wrote down the recipe for the yogurt marinated birds, and drew a diagram for the pit oven. He’d made them a few times in a regular oven, but it wasn’t quite the same. Knowing Sijmo, he’d have been in the first line of defense of the Covert. Of all of them, Kreez was the most certain that Sijmo had marched on.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Sijmo Krett.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>7: Luxury Dishes</em>
</p><p>Kreez hadn’t been looking for anything other than dates when he met Sanbras.</p><p>While everyone in the Nevarro Covert had been a warrior, to a greater or lesser degree, that wasn’t the case on Mandalore. Yes, Kreez was technically in the fighting corps, but as support. Outside the fighting corps there were millions of civilians. Everyone was expected to know which end of a blaster was which, but most civilians merely lived their lives.</p><p>Dates weren’t always easy to find on Mandalore. They had grown on the planet before the Jedi Wars that scorched the surface, and while there were some groves in the biodomes that helped purify the air, Mandalorian-grown dates were appallingly expensive. Sanbras’ family had developed a well-connected import network that could get in ingredients that no longer grew on the surface.</p><p>Oh, they weren’t the same- differences in soil, in atmosphere, even minor differences in gravity had an effect on how things grew and tasted. But in the end, close enough was good enough. And Kreez wanted any dates he could get his hands on.</p><p>He did not expect a <em>date</em>.</p><p>He did not expect that the man who sold him the dates would also demand a walk through the gardens, where they would explain to each other about the various uses of the plants growing. He did not expect that the next week, he would get a message from the man that he’d found a source for the kes’ar threads. The good ones. The real ones.</p><p>He did not expect that he would trade a kiss for a jar of the precious threads, and then worry that he was so clumsy and awkward that the man who sold the dates would never contact him again.</p><p>Sanbras did, if course. And every free moment they could steal with each other was not enough.</p><p>The dates were the basis of Sanbras’ favorite food. A sweet, spicy little morsel of a date with the pit removed, then the center filled with black pepper. The dates would be fried in uj’ayl syrup, and then ideally eaten in the sweet spot between “too hot to eat without injury” and “stuck together.”</p><p>“They’re perfect, cyare, because they remind us of the sweetness of life, and the unexpected spiciness, well, what’s life without a surprise?”</p><p>“You’re a surprise.” Kreez muttered, and Sanbras grinned without shame.</p><p>Neither of them had expected the Purge when it began, though in retrospect, Kreez had noticed that the command staff had been tense. Sanbras had just been off-world, bringing in another load of imported food.</p><p>“If I’d had any idea,” he’d snorted in disgust when Kreez found him once things had gone sour, “We could have brought in more weapons.”</p><p>“More?”</p><p>“You didn’t think we only brought in food, did you, cyar’ika?”</p><p>Governor Saxon tried to limit access to weapons, tried to control the ebb and flow of weapons into the planet, but New Mandalorians or no, pacifism wasn’t in the blood of Mandalorians. Not truly. Sanbras’s family hadn’t intended to get into the weapons smuggling business, but someone made a request, then another, then another, then word got around, and the next thing anyone knew, there were thermal detonators tucked lovingly among the leeks.</p><p>During the wild, glorious, terrifying two months that Kreez was with the Resistance on Mandalore, he’d never felt more alive. Cooking was his passion, it was his art, but this was just… something else.</p><p>Looking back, from his quiet, solitary life on Canto Bight, he wasn’t sure if he’d want to go back to that level of constant stress. But it had been <em>living</em>, not merely existing. And he’d been with someone who’s soul had fit with his. Somewhere in the midst of all the horror and terror, he’d found his kar’ta, his star.</p><p>The last night he had with Sanbras, they’d been out of detonators, and were making charges with black powder. “Like stuffing the dates with the ground pepper, eh?” Sanbras had laughed.</p><p>“We never said them.” Kreez said, once they’d finished with the last of the explosives.</p><p>“Said what?”</p><p>“The vows. We never said them.”</p><p>Sanbras grinned. “You think now is a good time to get married?”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>That had been over eleven years ago. Kreez carefully wrote the recipe in his book, taking extra care because his hand was shaking. He didn’t want to believe his riduur was gone. But the odds were that he was. Hope was a slender thing, and after so much heartache for so long, he wasn’t sure if holding on to it was worth the pain.</p><p>Next to the recipe he wrote, “<em>Sweet as love, spicy-sharp as the fear of losing it.” </em></p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Sanbras, ner riduur. Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, ner cyare.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>4:  Compound Dishes</p><p>This section in Apicius is called “compound dishes” which has a lot of things that have a number of ingredients. There’s a number of things that are like frittatas, but there’s also some porridge like things.  </p><p>I asked a Indian-American friend of mine if she had any suggestions for a porridge, and she gave me the recipe for moriyo. “I eat it when I want something warm and hearty or if I’m not feeling well.” And hence the thought of Ordo having a cold was born.  </p><p>Soak a cup of moriyo grain in a half cup of water for five minutes. Melt a tablespoon of ghee in a pan, and warm up 2 teaspoons of cumin. Add a teaspoon of mashed green chili and one small diced white potato. Once the potato is cooked, add the moriyo, water and all, and cook it until it’s like grits</p><p>5: Pulses</p><p>This chapter has recipes for beans and lentils and mushy things. Sweet bean paste buns don’t really go with my schema for Mando food, but these things do happen.</p><p>There was a discussion on the manda’yaim server about bean paste buns, however…. And I have a soft spot for Vayez and Vha Vizsla. So here we are.  </p><p>I envision these dumplings as a lot like these, except with a bit of a kick to them. Chipotle, maybe? Or smoked paprika? I bet the smokey flavor would go well with the beans.  </p><p>https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/homemade-red-bean-buns/</p><p>6: Fowl.</p><p>It’s tandoori chicken. </p><p>https://www.tandoors.com/2018/06/25/in-tandoor-recipe-perfect-tandoori-chicken-chicken-tikka/</p><p>7: Luxury dishes</p><p>This is one of my absolute favorite recipes from Apicius. The idea is that while you can’t eat a date pit, if you stuff the dates with an almond or a walnut bit, it’s almost like eating an unpitted date. The Romans were very big into illusion foods.  </p><p>But another variation is stuffing the dates with ground pepper, which you’d think tastes a bit odd, but it works with the honey, and it really is like loading tiny grenades with black power.</p><p>Mando'a Translations</p><p>Buir: Parent<br/>Beroya: Bounty hunter<br/>al'verde: Commander<br/>Skraan'ur: cook<br/>Vor entye: Thank you (Lit: I accept a debt)<br/>alor: chief<br/>Cyar'ika: sweetheart<br/>ner riduur: My spouse<br/>Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum: I love you<br/>Cyare: beloved</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Three more character sketches with recipes from Kreez's book of remembrance, based on books 8-10 of Apicius' De Re Coquinaria.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Favreau dropped a new batch of episodes of his cooking show in Netflix, which means it's time for Kreez to come back.</p><p>The title, De Re Coquinaria, is from a 5th century Roman cookbook. It's separated into ten sections, which became the basis for the structure of this set of character studies. There will be ten parts in total, this chapter has sections 4-7.</p><p>For the names of the spices, I followed the same scheme I started in Form of Curry: they're based on the Hindi words. I did not try to come up with words for other various ingredients, but it felt important that there be Mando'a words for something that is so important to the culture as spice.</p><p>Mirch: pepper<br/>Tej leave: bay leaves<br/>Kes’ar: saffron<br/>Mace: gada<br/>Turmeric: hu’ldi<br/>Coriander: dhunni’a<br/>Ginger: sont<br/>Cayenne: sook’ mir’rch<br/>Cloves: laug<br/>Cardamom: ilaayachii<br/>Cinnamon: Dal’chi’nee<br/>Cumin: jeera<br/>Lovage: pra'kaar</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>8: Quadrapeds</em>
</p><p>The number of things that Kreez knew about the beroya could be counted on one hand. He had been a Foundling. He’d grown up on Concordia, with the fighting corps up there. He was the main provider for the Tribe, he was a great bounty hunter (“the best in a parsec!”), and he pretended he didn’t care about food.</p><p>He <em>did</em> care about food. He’d trained himself to go without as much as possible. Oh, sure, he made sure he had the calories, and he made sure he met his nutritional requirements, but he did so as cheaply as possible. His job was to provide for the Tribe, not waste credits on himself. He needed to be able to function in order to do his job, but he trained himself to function on the lowest cost possible.</p><p>But Kreez had seen the longing in the beroya’s posture when presented with a bowl of tiingilar, the subtle quickness in his step as he took the stew to his room to eat. So he made sure that the beroya got choice bits when he came home.</p><p>Kreez knew very well that both the Armorer and the al’verde knew what he was doing, and despite some mild irritation from the al’verde, he and the beroya were like oil and water, no one tried to stop him. The beroya worked hard. He deserved to get a decent meal on the rare occasions he was home.</p><p>The problem was, those occasions were rare, and he was often there and gone in a short time. Time enough to have one meal, maybe. Yes, there was always something simmering for people to eat as needed, but that was hardly a decent meal.</p><p>No, something would have to be done. He needed to make something that the beroya could take with him, that would keep, didn’t need refrigeration, and ideally didn’t require a lot of attentive cooking. He frowned at the freeze dried nerf meat, then at the wine.</p><p>He’d been taught that ideally, you shouldn’t cook with wine you wouldn’t drink. However, when the only wine you’ve got is inexpensive-but-passable, then that’s what you go with. Of course, the wine wasn’t the only flavor that was going into the meat. All sorts of spices, from cinnamon to mace, to the special pepper grains that had a tangy taste to them. And the smallest pinch of kes’ar.</p><p>He experimented with the amounts, but he knew what he was about. The freeze dried nerf had no added flavor (if it had been properly jerkied, it would have had plenty, but… well. It wasn’t), so all the flavor needed to be added into the cooking. Spice and flavor the wine. Then let the meat sit in the wine at the very least overnight, if not a full cycle. Then let it cook low and slow for several hours.</p><p>The stew was good on its own, but eaten with haashun, then it was even better.</p><p>The next time the beroya came in, Kreez handed him a bag with the meat, the spiced wine, and the directions. “You have a cooker you can set a timer on, right?”</p><p>“....I… what?”</p><p>“How do you cook food in that thing?”</p><p>“I usually just eat ration bars…” The beroya tilted his head down to look in the bag. “What’s this?”</p><p>“That spiced wine stew you like. But you need to be able to, you know, stew it.” Kreez sighed, and went back into the kitchen, coming out with a small cooker, big enough for one serving. “Here, use this. You can use it for other stuff, too, but… take it.”</p><p>Reluctantly, the beroya took it. “You don’t need this?”</p><p>“It’s too small for anything useful here, perfect for one person.” Kreez did not mention that he acquired it specifically for this purpose. It’s not like he spent credits on it, it just happened to fall into a bag. Accidentally.</p><p>Kreez wrote out the recipe for the dried meat stew carefully, noting where substitutions could be made, and how, and what proportions were ideal to the beroya’s tastes. He also, as an afterthought, scrawled in notes on where to get the special peppercorns. They were hard to find.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, beroya.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>9: The Sea</em>
</p><p>The Armorer was intimidating. That was the simple truth of it. She wasn’t the biggest person in the Covert. She wasn’t the loudest. She led by simply being the leader. When Ordo had brought Kreez and Sijmo into the Covert, he immediately set them down to meet the Armorer.</p><p>“You sit and you wait until she talks to you.”</p><p>“She know we’re coming?” Sijmo asked.</p><p>Ordo had made a noise that was supposed to sound like an affirmative, but Sijmo and Kreez both looked askance at each other. That did not sound confident, not at all.</p><p>For her part, the Armorer was never entirely surprised when Ordo dragged someone home. More than a few of the Foundlings and some of the adults had been acquired while he was out hunting and he always had a good sense of how they’d fit into the Covert.</p><p>And they needed a cook. Desperately.</p><p>Kreez was in awe of her. After he’d been with the Nevarro Tribe for a while, he wanted desperately to show his appreciation for the place she’d given him. So he planned a meal for her like he’d plan for Governor Saxon.</p><p>Not that he would say it was like that. He’d figured out pretty quickly that Saxon was a dirty word around here, not that he disagreed. But she deserved the same respect that he demanded. (Whether he deserved it or not…. Kreez snorted to himself. Saxon deserved none of the things he demanded, but he had deserved his execution.)</p><p>The main thing he wanted to prepare was one of the spiny armored sea bugs. They were hard to get anywhere. On Mandalore, they’d only get them in a special order when Saxon had a special dinner he was presiding over. On Nevarro, they were even harder to come by, and appallingly expensive.</p><p>Kreez had some credits of his own. He’d tried to give them to the Armorer, but she had waved them away. “We do not need to bleed everyone dry here.”</p><p>Still, Kreez wanted to show his respect for her, and quietly put a word in the beroya’s ear that he should be on the lookout for the bugs. Every so often he’d get a quick message from the beroya with a picture of something, and Kreez would almost always tell him no, not that, that is poisonous to most humanoid species, please do not buy that.</p><p>But finally, on some weird planet that barely had a name, the beroya found the right creature. And he used some of his hard earned credits to buy the sea bugs and (somehow) managed to keep them alive on the trip back.</p><p>Kreez was immensely pleased. They were so much better when fresh, and the window between “Death” and “going bad” was very small unless they were well frozen. These were perfect.</p><p>He locked the door to the kitchen because he’d never made this recipe with his helmet on and he was so anxious to get it right. This was not a time to experiment with anything. Nervously, he took a swig of the wine for the sauce and got started.</p><p>First, cut up an onion. He smiled to himself. Many many many good recipes started like that. Cut up some of the dates… he sighed to himself, thinking of Sanbras, then very carefully set that thought aside. In a pot, he poured in some wine (then took another swig, “splash for the sauce, splash for the chef…”) and honey and vinegar.</p><p>He also needed reduced wine, which he had on hand. It was not good for drinking, since the alcohol was mostly boiled off. Oil. Some of the smelly fish sauce. Just a little. He didn’t have much, and while he could try to make it, it smelled exactly like death during the fermenting process. Even on Nevarro, someone might notice and investigate.</p><p>Finally, after another healthy swig of the wine, he started to add the herbs and spices. Pepper, of course, jeera, both the seeds and the leaves. Pra’kaar. Let all of that simmer together while he killed and cleaned the sea bugs.</p><p>It was important to get the internal bits out. First, they could make people sick. Also they tasted terrible. One the grill they went, with the sauce poured over so it could soak into the meat.</p><p>As they cooked, Kreez anxiously drank more of the wine until, somehow, the bottle was empty. He peered at the sauce left in the pot. He must have used too much wine in the sauce. That was the only explanation for where it had gone.</p><p>He did feel less nervous about presenting the dish to the Armorer, though. That was nice.</p><p>The smell from the sea bugs was wonderful and almost right. He smiled to himself at being able to enjoy it unfiltered. A locking door on the kitchen wasn’t necessary, but it was really nice. He carefully arranged the platter with the spiny bugs, some sides, fluffy bread to soak up the sauce, and brought along another bottle of wine. He almost <em>almost! </em>Forgot to put his helmet on before unlocking the door.</p><p>He saw a few heads lift as he walked out with the covered dish. Sijmo gave a nod- he knew what this was about. The al’verde made a little head shake as Kreez went into the Forge and proudly put the platter down on the Armorer’s small table. She had a small private room she used for sleeping and eating, of course, but he would never go in there.</p><p>Ever.</p><p>She came over and looked down at the platter, and with a flourish, he removed the cover.</p><p>She tilted her head.</p><p>“I wanted to make something special. To thank you for letting us stay.” Kreez started. Then to his horror, he just kept going. “It wasn’t easy to get the bugs, but they turned out pretty good. And the sauce is just like I made for… well. It’s for a leader you respect a lot and I thought you’d like it. Because I do. Respect you a lot. And I wanted to show my appreciation for… you know. All of this. Um. It’s… well. Anyway. Please enjoy.”</p><p>The Armorer nodded graciously. “Thank you.”</p><p>She took the platter and, yes, the wine, and disappeared into her private room. Kreez staggered back to the kitchen and waited, anxiously. “I should have told her I wanted the shells back for stock,” he muttered.</p><p>The platter came back clean. She merely told him later that it was very good, but she preferred more…. Plebian fare. “It is not necessary, skraan’ur, to go to such lengths for me.”</p><p>He was pretty sure she knew that it was something that Saxon would have demanded. He’d been happy to give it freely, but if that kind of deference made her uncomfortable, then he wouldn’t do it again.</p><p>But, he thought, as he wrote down the recipe in his book, it was important to have a record of how one might choose to honor a respected leader. Even if one of the reasons he respected her was that such displays were not something she desired.</p><p>Even if some of the Tribe had survived, he wasn’t sure if she would have gone with them or stayed to the last. He honestly had no idea which path she would have chosen.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Alor.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>10: The Fisherman</em>
</p><p>The al’baar’ur, Reth, was an older man. He also wasn’t with the Nevarro Tribe originally, he’d joined them not long after the Purge.</p><p>“We left Mandalore after the Civil War….”</p><p>“Which one?”</p><p>“Does it matter?” Reth chuckled. “There’s been so many. We ended up on a small backwater, scratching out an existence. Everyone knew we were there, which meant we eventually developed a reputation as a place you could come for a mercenary or two.” Reth had managed to get a scholarship to a small medical school, then jumped from small Mandalorian community to small Mandalorian community to do medical care. When the Purge came, his people had been entirely wiped out, along with most of the communities he’d served. He found the Nevarro Tribe by chance, and they’d been happy to take him in, especially since their former baar’ur had… left.</p><p>Kreez liked Reth. He had grown up in a much more open Tribe than most of the Nevarro people, so he’d introduced himself with his name right away. Kreez had been profoundly relieved. They of course respected the Tribe’s rule about helmets, but between themselves, they both thought it was a little silly.</p><p>Reth’s Tribe had been, at the start, extremely poor. Actual food had been scarce and they’d lived on rations for the most part. Sometimes, though, sometimes they’d been able to scrounge up ingredients.</p><p>“My ba’buir was about to bring her spice box with her when my family left. It’s the only spices we had for… ages. Years.”</p><p>Kreez hissed. Spices didn’t hold their flavor over years. You had to use them. But if that was all you had and there was no way to get more….</p><p>“For a special treat, we’d get a fish stew…”</p><p>Fish on Nevarro was… difficult. The few bodies of water were so acidic from the volcanic atmosphere that anything that lived in them was inedible by most species. Fresh fish was impossible, frozen was often expensive, but freeze dried, while disgusting, did come in sometimes. Freeze dried fish was the basis of Reth’s childhood stew, so Kreez would make it for him.</p><p>It wasn’t particularly good. There were a lot of bland vegetables, and a few small things with taste. The broth only involved a small bit of kar’ee powder, and a lot of water. It was served over more bland tubers. There was only a small bit of fish, comparatively, and it was poached so long in liquid that it mostly fell apart. Reth had helped make it several times as a child.</p><p>Kreez once tried to make it properly, with a full blend of spices, toasted and ground, with full-flavor aromatics, with seared fish, served over flavorful rice. The rest of the tribe had loved it. Reth had politely eaten a small bowl and brought it back.</p><p>“Didn’t you like it?”</p><p>“It was… it was good, skraan’ur, but it didn’t taste like yaim’la.” Reth made a soft sound of sadness and longing. “I know it wasn’t actually a good dish, but… it was special. It meant that we had something to celebrate. It tasted like yaim’la and aliit and it meant we were all alive and together.”</p><p>Kreez carefully wrote down both the way Reth had liked the fish stew and the way he’d modified it. He could understand something tasting like home, something that wasn’t objectively good, but reminded you of a happier time.</p><p>“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Reth.”</p><p> </p><p>Kreez fell asleep after writing and woke up with his light still on and the book next to his pillow. Pages and pages of remembrances and recipes, notes, what substitutions could be made where.</p><p>It was, in theory, he mused, safe enough to make notes about the various vendors in the bazaar on Nevarro. They weren’t there anymore. There was no one to protect, no covert to keep hidden. But habits about secrecy and safety and survival die hard. The notes were vague and coded. Not that he ever expected to go back to Nevarro to begin with, or, at this point, ever cook many of these dishes again.</p><p>This was his life now. Get up, cook for the various aruetiise that came through this corner of Canto, go to sleep. Sometimes he’d go out for a stroll, gamble a little at some of the lower-class establishments, but mostly he just stayed in his kitchen and his rooms and hoarded his credits.</p><p>For what? He didn’t know. At some point, he knew he should go and find someplace else, find something to live for, but the idea was just <em>so hard.</em> Every life he’d built for himself, he’d lost, one way or another. He’d lost every family he had. What was the point of trying to build a new one when it would all just be taken away again?</p><p>He was working in the kitchen, making another batch of the stew. It was already somewhat spicy, but there were things he could add to it if someone wanted it even hotter. Hell, someone had come in earlier that day and ordered two bowls “as spicy as you can make it.”</p><p>Kreez had double checked, even asked if the person who ordered it was perhaps a Mandalorian, but the counterman said no, it was just a woman in a drab poncho. No helmet.</p><p>Kreez tried to ignore the little jump of hope the order had given him. He turned back to the stove poking at the sauce, using the tiny tasting spoons the Armorer had made for him that slipped under his helmet, when he heard a mild commotion out in the front.</p><p>The door opened and he sighed. “What is it, Rhys?”</p><p>There was a long pause. Then a voice he didn’t recognize, unfiltered, said, “Su cuy’gar, vod.” At the sound of Mando’a, he froze and the voice continued, “Me’vaar ti gar?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>8: Quadrapeds</p><p>This particular recipe is loosely based on a stew that i helped make for a medieval feast over ten years ago, and all I really remember is “soak beef jerky in wine.” The source was The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, (Opera meaning "body of work," not the singing), but I don't have the text on hand. The following is a fairly common version of a 15th century beef stew. Unlike a lot of the other recipes in this story, this one is designed to be a little Chopped based: What can I make for this guy that requires very little work, where the ingredients will keep for a long time, and still tastes good?</p><p>http://www.medievalcuisine.com/Euriol/recipe-index/beef-y-stywyd</p><p>Original Recipe:</p><p>Beef y-Stywyd. Take fayre beef of þe rybbys of þe fore quarterys, an smyte in fayre pecys, an wasche þe beef in-to a fayre potte; þan take þe water þat þe beef was soþin yn, an strayne it þorw a straynowr, an sethe þe same water and beef in a potte, an let hem boyle to-gederys; þan take canel, clowes, maces, graynys of parise, quibibes, and oynons y-mynced, perceli, an sawge, an caste þer-to, an let hem boyle togederys; an þan draw it þorw a straynoure, and let it be stylle; an whan it is nere y-now, caste þe lycour þer-to, but nowt to moche, and þan let boyle onys, an caste safroun þer-to a quantyte; þan take salt an venegre, and cast þer-to, an loke þat it be poynaunt y-now, &amp; serue forth.</p><p>Translation:</p><p>Beef Stewed. Take fair beef of the ribs of the fore-quarters, and smite in fair pieces, and wash the beef into a fair pot; then take the water that the beef was seethed in, and strain it through a strainer, and seethe the same water and beef in a pot, and let them boil together; then take cinnamon, cloves, mace, grains of paradise, cubebs, and onions minced, parsley, and sage, and cast thereto, and let them boil together; and then take a loaf of bread, and steep it with broth and vinegar, and then draw it through a strainer, and let it be still; and when it is near enough, cast the liquor thereto, but not too much, and then let boil once, and cast saffron thereto a quantity; then take salt and vinegar, and cast thereto, and look that it be poignant enough, and serve forth.</p><p>9. The Sea</p><p>This is, to go back to the first recipe in Mise en Place, also from Apicius. The sauce for a spiny lobster is wine, defrutum (a reduced wine), Garum (fish sauce), oil, honey, pepper, cumin, coriander, and lovage.  </p><p>I liked the idea of the Armorer getting a dish with an armored creature. And Kreez being anxious and drunk when presenting it, well. Whomst among us.  </p><p> </p><p>10: The Fisherman</p><p>Reth’s fish stew is based on the Curried Cod recipe from Victory in the Kitchen: Wartime Recipes, published by the Imperial War Museum. I have not found an online version, and as it is under copyright, I am not going to reproduce it. However, it involves salt cod, a lot of liquid, a pound of random root veggies, a small onion, and half a teaspoon of curry powder. </p><p>For wartime British food where rationing was in play, this is pretty typical. But you know those foods from your childhood that you know there’s a “better” version of, but sometimes you just want what you grew up with? Yeah. </p><p>https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7TAQKR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1</p><p> </p><p>Kreez's story continues in Sha'kajir.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"A colorful plate is a healthy plate" is something my mother, a registered dietician and retired food science professor, says to me ALL THE TIME. </p><p>Further info on De Re Coquinaria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius</p><p>1: Mise en place</p><p>This is the first recipe in the book by Apicius that this whole fic is structured around. The first chapter of the book is drinks and how to fix wine that’s gone off and how to preserve things, and the idea of Paz just chilling while drinking mulled wine was just… too good. </p><p>https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/1*.html</p><p>The composition of this excellent spiced wine is as follows. Into a copper bowl put 6 sextarii1 of honey and 2 sextarii of wine; heat on a slow fire, constantly stirring the mixture with a whip. At the boiling point add a dash of cold wine, retire from stove and skim. Repeat this twice or three times, let it rest till the next day, and skim again. Then add 4 ounces of crushed pepper,2 3 scruples of mastich, a drachm each of nard or laurel leaves and saffron, 5 drachms of roasted date stones crushed and previously soaked in wine to soften them. When this is properly done add 18 sextarii of light wine. To clarify it perfectly, add crushed charcoal3 twice or as often as necessary which will draw the residue together and carefully strain or filter through the charcoal.</p><p>2: Meat Dishes</p><p>Obviously this is a samosa, and it’s based on one of the earliest written recipes for samosas we have, from somewhere around 1500. (There’s no potatoes because those are a New World food that didn’t make it to India until the 17th century, and wasn’t widely cultivated until the 18th century.)  </p><p>https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2016/11/nasir-shahs-book-of-delights.html</p><p>Mix together well-cooked mince with the same amount of minced onion and chopped dried ginger, a quarter of those, and half a tūlcha [a measure] of ground garlic and having ground three tūlchas of saffron in rosewater, mix it with the mince together with aubergine pulp. Stuff the samosas and fry (them) in ghee. Whether made from thin course flour bread or from fine flour bread or from uncooked dough, any of the three (can be used) for cooking samosas, they are delicious. (Titley, p. 4)</p><p>3: Vegetable Dishes</p><p>Edii is MissTeaVee’s character and this is also MissTeaVee’s recipe. (She’d say “it’s more of a method” but familiar as I am with centuries old recipes that are just a list of ingredients and maybe a verb or two, it’s close enough.)</p><p>"Roast Squash, garlic and onion. If you want to you can do carrot or yam too you can. Roast till soft, and during that, dice up onion and sautee with black pepper, curry seasoning, some coconut flakes and as much spice as you want. Then once the veg is about to become mush, throw it into the pot and pour in coconut milk and stir till creamy as you like.<br/>Simmer and continue to season till perfection." </p><p> </p><p>Mando'a Translations:</p><p>Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum:<br/>Vode: comrades<br/>Cyare: beloved<br/>Riduurok: Marriage, love bond<br/>ad'ika: little one<br/>Al'verde: Commander<br/>al’baar’ur: Doctor<br/>hetikles: *noseburn* - burning sensation in the sinuses brought about by specific spices - Mandalorians prize this<br/>draluram: vivid - used only of food, to indicate strong, distinct flavour, lit. *bright mouth* - one of the four essentials of Mandalorian cooking<br/>Buir: parent (Diminutive: Bu.)<br/>Ba'buir: Grandparent</p></blockquote></div></div>
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